Two Steps Up
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: Lois and Clark go on their first assignment as partners for the Daily Planet. Minor season eight spoilers.


**Author's Note:** This is a sequel to my earlier story, _The Adventures of Hot Fudge and Halibut_ and is set in season eight, so there are some minor spoilers.

**Two Steps Up**

"So, explain to me, again, why we're out in the middle of nowhere?"

Clark bit back a grin as Lois stepped into a mud puddle, sinking up to her ankle with a muffled curse, and adding to the mud and filth that already adorned her clothes. Without a word, Clark looped an arm around Lois's waist and tugged, freeing her from the mud.

"We're covering that fancy, new survival training course, as per the invitation Perry received a week ago," Clark explained.

"No," Lois snapped, enunciating each word, carefully, "I meant, why us? Why not the Sports section, or Outdoor Living? We're City Desk for crying out loud!"

"I just got hired two weeks ago, and you were just promoted out of the basement," Clark reminded her. "Perry wants us to have a chance to learn to work together as partners."

"But, Perry wasn't the one who got the invitation," Lois argued. "Tess Mercer did, and she's the one who ordered him to send us out here. And do you know why she did that?"

"Because it's a reporter's job to cover stories?" Clark asked, wryly.

"Because I'm getting too close," Lois crowed, triumphantly. "I'm asking the kinds of questions that tend to make people very nervous, and a certain someone wants me out of the way."

"Tess Mercer is not a bad person," Clark protested.

"And here I thought the Lana debacle would have cured you of your blindness for a pretty face," Lois said, her voice slightly mocking.

"I do not think that Tess is pretty!" Clark insisted, his cheeks turning red.

"You must, or you wouldn't be defending her," Lois told him.

"I just don't think that she's the devil incarnate, that's all," Clark said.

"She works for Lex Luthor!" Lois exclaimed, turning an incredulous look on him. "How much more proof do you need?"

"You worked for Lex for a while, there," Clark reminded her. "What does that say about you?"

"Oh, that is _so_ not the same thing!" Lois growled, glaring at him, furiously.

"Excuse me!" a voice called out, imperiously.

Lois and Clark turned away from their heated argument to see their guide, along with the rest of their hiking group, staring at them from about a couple hundred yards up the trail.

"Ms. Lane, Mr. Kent, are the two of you planning on joining us anytime this afternoon?" the man continued, raising an eyebrow as he looked them over.

Shooting Clark an angry look, Lois stalked away from him, stomping over to where the rest of the group was waiting not-so-patiently. Clark sighed and jogged over to join them, stopping beside Lois, who looked pointedly away from him.

This was going to be a long week.

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

Lois still wasn't speaking to him by the time they got back to their shared cabin at the resort. Instead, she slammed the front door behind her, practically hitting him in the nose, and by the time he got inside, she'd already barricaded herself in the bathroom with the shower going full force.

When she emerged from the steam-filled bathroom nearly forty minutes later, a towel wrapped around her torso, it was only long enough to snatch her small duffel bag from the top of the dresser. Clark jumped up from the bed he'd been stretched out on, but he only made it halfway across the room before the door was slammed in his face – again.

Clark groaned and flopped back down on the bed.

"Are you going to give me the silent treatment all week?" he called through the closed door.

Predictably, Lois didn't say a word.

"You know, most people get mad at me because they think I'm keeping a secret, not after they find out what it is," he joked, weakly.

"Then, maybe you should have brought one of the members of the Clark Kent Fan Club along with you!" Lois sniped, raising her voice loud enough for Clark to hear her over the hairdryer she'd turned on.

"Am I ever going to get the shower?" Clark asked, when Lois had remained silent for several long minutes.

"I'm not done, yet," Lois snapped, clearly still irritated with him.

Clark groaned, again, and threw his arm over his eyes. He didn't regret telling Lois his secret last Valentine's Day, and he didn't think he ever would, but sometimes he wished that she was just a little easier to get along with. She was so frustratingly _different_ from everyone around him.

A muffled curse coming from the bathroom broke into his thoughts, and then the door slammed open and steam poured out. Lois came out, and Clark raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the sight of Lois with her finger in her mouth and foam on her lips.

"I forgot my toothbrush," she mumbled around her finger, as she continued to scrub at her teeth.

"I could run back to your apartment and get it for you," Clark offered, extending what he hoped was a metaphorical olive branch.

Instead, Lois glared at Clark and stomped over to where he was sitting.

"I do not need you to get my toothbrush," she told him, pointedly jabbing her finger into his chest with each word. "I am perfectly capable of looking out for myself."

Clark nodded, wiping drops of toothpaste foam from his face.

"Got it," he said, simply.

Lois retreated back into the bathroom, presumably to rinse out her mouth, and when she came back out, she threw herself down on her bed and scowled up at the ceiling.

"If I was out here by myself," she began, without looking over at Clark, "or on assignment with any other reporter, there would be no 'running back' for my toothbrush, or anything else I forgot. I'd have to make do, just like I did, now."

"But-"

"And I don't need you to pull me out of the mud, or move fallen tree branches, or anything else like that," Lois continued, going on as if Clark hadn't spoken.

"But it's no problem," Clark insisted.

"That's not the point," Lois told him, sighing. Then, she groaned and shook her head. "Forget it," she said. "Just go take your shower."

Clark looked over at Lois, but she was still staring up at the ceiling, and ignoring him. Still feeling like he was missing something, Clark got up and went to take his shower. When he came out of the bathroom, the room was quiet, and Lois was fast asleep.

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

The end of the week, and the end of the survival course, brought the real test. The members of the group were paired up and then driven, blindfolded, to a remote location somewhere in the mountains, several miles from the resort. Each pair was given a compass, a radio, and a backpack with some food, water, and basic medical supplies in case of an emergency.

And they were given a deadline. Five hours to use the skills they'd been taught during the past week and make it back to the resort. There was even a prize for the first team to make it back to the resort, the assumption being that a little friendly competition would encourage the teams.

"Of course," Lois mused, as she and Clark watched the guide drive away in the Jeep only to be swallowed up by the thick fog that covered the area, "that only works if we know how the other teams are doing."

"Somehow, I don't see that being a problem for you," Clark said, shrugging the backpack onto his shoulders.

Lois grinned at him, in response.

"Let's get moving, Smallville," she said, slapping him on the back as she started down one of the myriad paths that surrounded them. "We've got a prize to win."

'Wait a minute," Clark protested, not following Lois. "How do you know that's the way we need to go?"

Lois, already several yards down the trail, stopped and turned around to face him.

"Well, we can't follow the Jeep, back, because that's cheating," she informed him. "So, this is the quickest way back."

"But, you can't just pick a trail and start walking," Clark continued, stubbornly.

"You really don't have any sense of direction, do you?" Lois asked, with an amused smile on her face. "Clark, when you're facing the flagpole back at the resort, which direction is it?"

"North," Clark answered.

"And where was the flagpole when we left?" Lois prompted.

"It was on our right," Clark said, grinning as he got what Lois was getting at. "We started out going east."

"We drove that direction for about ten minutes, and then we made a left turn, then a right-"

Lois kept listing directions fast enough to make Clark's head spin, and he found himself losing track very quickly. When she finished with a triumphant grin, he gave her a sheepishly blank look, and she sighed and punched him lightly on the shoulder.

"You're hopeless, Smallville," she declared. "Just follow me."

She started walking, again, and Clark followed, willingly. She stayed ahead of him on the trail, and as thick as the fog was, Clark quickly lost sight of her, until he used his x-ray vision. The effort of trying to see through the fog, for some strange reason, left him with a sharp headache, so he abandoned his efforts and simply listened to her talk while they trekked through the forest.

And then Lois screamed, a high, sharp sound that nearly made his heart stop.

"Lois!" Clark yelled, but there was no answer.

He ran forward, heedless of the wet ground, but stopped when he reached the part of the trail where Lois had very clearly fallen over the edge.

"Lois!" he yelled, again.

From below, a faint "Ow," floated up. Then, almost as faintly, she yelled up, "Don't come down here!"

"What?" Clark yelled down, confused. Why wouldn't Lois want him to go down and help her?

She called out something else, but he couldn't hear her, even when he focused his hearing. He didn't know why she didn't want his help, but he couldn't just leave her down there. So, choosing his footing carefully, he started his way down the steep incline. He'd only gone a few feet down when he slipped on a branch, and before he knew it, he was tumbling end over end down the incline. He didn't know how long he fell before he cracked his head on something hard, and everything went black.

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

Clark opened his eyes, groaning in pain, but closed them again, just as quickly. What little light had managed to filter through the canopy of trees was still enough to send sharp, stabbing pains to the back of his eyes. His head felt like it was about to explode, and the rest of him didn't feel all that great, either.

A hand on his shoulder made him jerk in surprise, but he managed, at the last second, to remember to keep his eyes shut, contenting himself with turning his head in the direction of the touch.

"How are you feeling, Smallville?"

Lois's voice practically boomed in his ear, and he flinched away from her.

"Can you whisper?" he croaked out.

"I am whispering," Lois said, and her voice sounded almost tolerable that time.

Clark figured if she'd been whispering before, she had to be barely making any noise, now. The thought of Lois practically silent almost made him grin, but even the smallest movements hurt, so he did his best to stay completely still.

He closed his eyes for half a second, and when he opened them again, Lois was kneeling beside him, her hands on his shoulder. When she noticed Clark looking at her, she smiled in what was meant to be a reassuring manner.

"This is going to hurt," she cautioned him, as gently as she could. "Bite down on this," she added, holding out the strap that had been torn from the backpack.

Clark gingerly took the strap from her with his good hand and bit down, hard, anticipating the pain she'd warned him about. Lois nodded and took a firmer grip on his arm and shoulder, then gave his arm a quick, hard jerk. White-hot pain lanced up his arm and his vision grayed out before everything went blissfully black.

When Clark regained consciousness a second time, it was to the sound of tearing cloth. Cautiously opening his eyes, he saw Lois ripping the arms off of her sweatshirt.

"What are you doing?" he croaked, only realizing after he'd spoken that he wasn't in pain. At least, not the all-encompassing pain that had crippled him, before.

"Bandages," Lois explained, as she tore the sleeves into strips.

"Didn't they put bandages in the backpack with the rest of the first aid kit?" Clark asked, as he struggled to sit up.

He sucked in a sharp breath when something shifted inside, and Lois shot him an annoyed look. She moved over to where he was sitting, and nudged his bad arm, gently. He lifted his arm as much as he was able, and Lois wrapped one of the sleeves around his arm and tied it behind his neck.

"You," she explained, as she finished tying off his sling, "have several cracked – if not broken – ribs which needed binding, not to mention your dislocated shoulder, and then there's my ankle-"

She gestured to her leg, the lower half of which was bound up in an impromptu splint of white bandages and short sticks.

"You're bleeding," Clark said, suddenly, as he noticed a dark gash on Lois's forehead.

"Yeah," Lois said, ruefully, "I think I've got a concussion. Hit my head on something on the way down."

"It looks like we're stuck here for a while," she continued, after a minute. "Unless you feel up to walking."

"Can't we just radio for help, and wait until someone comes and finds us?" Clark asked.

"Radio's busted," Lois explained, showing him the shattered remains of the radio.

"I could always run for help," Clark suggested, but Lois immediately nixed the idea.

"Not in your condition," she said, shaking her head. "You wouldn't be any faster than I would."

"How did I get hurt?" Clark asked, finally voicing the question he'd been too afraid to ask since he woke up.

Lois pointed, wordlessly, and he looked in the direction she'd indicated to see a small pile of kryptonite several hundred feet away. He went cold at the thought of getting any closer to the stuff than he already was.

"Sorry about how close it is," Lois said, apologetically. "The ground is just littered with it. I moved as much as I could away from you, but most of it is too deep in the ground."

"If we're surrounded by kryptonite," Clark asked, skeptically, "then why aren't I dead? Or, at least not in a heck of a lot more pain?"

"About ten years ago," Lois explained, "a tanker truck overturned on the highway and spilled tons of lead-based paint all over the road. They cleaned up as much as they could, but not before it got into the river and leeched into the ground, contaminating it. The lead is probably insulating you from the kryptonite, somewhat."

When Clark shot her an incredulous look, Lois rolled her eyes.

"It was part of our orientation tour, Smallville," she told him. "Didn't you listen to the guide at all the first day?"

"So, what do we do?" Clark asked.

"We head back to the resort," Lois answered. "They'll send out rescue teams, soon enough, when we didn't come back."

"Then why don't we just stay here and wait for the rescue team?" Clark asked. "They'll pick up our trail-"

"There is no trail," Lois interrupted him. "It started raining after we fell, and everything's mud."

Lois dragged herself to her feet, using a short branch obviously meant as a crutch, and held out a hand to Clark. Clark grabbed her hand and let her pull him to his feet. They climbed back up the steep hill and started walking along the trail, with Lois taking the lead. After a while, Lois's steps began to falter, and Clark moved up beside her, letting her lean on him.

Clark didn't know how long they'd been walking before Lois called a halt.

"It's too dark," she insisted, when Clark protested. "I don't know about you, but the General always taught me not to go stumbling around blindly in the dark, especially when you don't know where you are."

Not giving him a chance to argue, she limped over to a patch of grass a little bit off the trail. She poked at it with her crutch for a few seconds before waving him over.

"No glowing green rocks," she announced, "so I think we'll be fine."

"Fine for-" Clark prompted.

"Getting some sleep," Lois told him, as she dropped to the ground with a sigh as her weight was taken off her leg.

After a minute, Clark joined her on the wet grass, and they both fumbled awkwardly with jackets, splints, slings, and the backpack for several minutes before they managed to get themselves comfortable. Clark dug around in the backpack and came up with a couple of squashed granola bars, which he passed over to Lois. She ripped the wrapper off one of the bars and passed it back to him before tearing into her own.

"So, your dad taught you survival training?" Clark asked, taking a bite of his own granola bar.

"We called it camping," Lois said, wryly, "but, yeah."

She was quiet for a minute, then, "We only went once. It was after my mom was diagnosed, but right before she got really sick. It's the last clear memory I have of her."

"Where'd you go?" Clark asked.

"Yellowstone," Lois replied, and in the dark, Clark thought he saw a hint of a smile grace her features.

"We drove around the park and looked at the animals, we saw Old Faithful, we did all the touristy stuff," Lois continued, reminiscing. "And then, when it got dark like this, Dad showed me the stars and told me all their names, and Mom helped us make s'mores, and I had to make Lucy's because she was only two and couldn't get near the fire-"

Lois trailed off with a fond smile on her face, but it quickly disappeared.

"I don't think I've ever heard you call the General 'Dad'," Clark ventured.

"This was back before he was the General," Lois said, a little wistfully to Clark's ears. "He used to just be my dad, and then we lost Mom, and there was no more time for camping or anything silly – but that was a long time ago," she finished, firmly.

"I went camping with my dad, once," Clark offered, into the silence that followed, trying to get Lois to smile, again. "I was eight, and I was afraid of the forest, so we pitched a tent out in the middle of the field with all the cows."

He snuck a look over at Lois, and, emboldened by the bemused smile that tugged at her lips, he continued.

"We had cold hot dogs, and microwave popcorn, and cold marshmallows, since we couldn't have a fire. And I begged my dad to tell me the scariest ghost stories he knew, and then we went to sleep, only I woke up when I heard a noise outside our tent. There was this big, dark shadow outside the tent, and it was getting closer and closer, so I took a deep breath and threw the tent flap open-"

He paused for dramatic effect, and looked over at Lois, who was barely holding back her laughter.

"I threw the tent flap open," he repeated, ominously, "and there stood one of the newborn calves, staring at me with its big brown eyes."

Lois snorted out a laugh and Clark grinned along with her.

"Of course," he continued, "it was dark, and all I saw was a pair of eyes, so when the calf licked my cheek, I screamed so loud, Mom swore she could hear me all the way back at the house."

Still laughing, Lois shook her head. "Only you, Smallville," she said, affectionately.

"I was sure that some monster from the forest was coming to eat me," Clark told her, chuckling at the memory. "Dad swore I levitated at least a foot off the ground."

"Flying lessons from a cow," Lois remarked, smiling. "Come on, Smallville, we need to get some sleep before morning."

"You'll chase away any monsters?" Clark asked, cheekily.

"I'll beat 'em off with my crutch," Lois promised, punching Clark lightly in his good arm.

She stretched out on the ground, closing her eyes, and after a moment, Clark followed. He had almost fallen asleep when the sound of Lois's teeth chattering jerked him back to awareness. He opened his eyes to see Lois lying about a foot away from him, shivers wracking her body as she wrapped her arms tighter around her midsection.

Wordlessly, Clark scooted over to where Lois lay and draped his bad arm over her shoulders, snuggling his chest up against her back. Lois craned her head around as much as possible and shot Clark an inscrutable look.

"We're sharing body heat," Clark explained. "Making it this far isn't going to do us any good if we both freeze during the night."

Lois rolled her eyes.

"Cop a feel and I'll break your fingers," she mumbled, half-heartedly.

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

They both woke up a few short hours later, incredibly stiff and still exhausted, but also determined to get back to the resort before another day had passed. They ate the last two granola bars, Lois glaring at Clark until he'd finished the piece that he'd pocketed with the intention of giving it to her, later.

They started walking, and Lois set a grueling pace that Clark had no trouble matching, but had to be murder on her leg. Clark practically had to sit on her to get her to rest. But it worked.

Thirteen hours after they started, Lois and Clark made it back to the resort, filthy, exhausted, battered, and bruised. There was an ambulance already waiting for them when they showed up, and they were both whisked off to the local hospital. And when the doctor in the emergency room was too curious about why Clark's ribs would be wrapped up when they weren't broken, Lois distracted him with her head injury.

Grateful, Clark jerked his head toward the hallway, and Lois mouthed, 'Send in our story,' over the doctor's shoulder.

Clark nodded, and after asking a nurse for the nearest payphone, he dialed the city desk for the Daily Planet. He didn't have a chance to start dictating notes, though, because the intern immediately transferred him over to Perry White as soon as he heard Clark's name.

"Kent?" Perry White's voice was scratchy with distance and a bad connection. "Where in the Sam Hill have you been? They told me you and Lane were lost in the mountains."

"We're fine, sir," Clark assured the older man. "No permanent damage."

"Even after spending the night with Hurricane Lane?" Perry quipped.

Even as he marveled at the idea of Perry White, of all people, cracking a joke, he winced at the thought of Lois's reaction to hearing her new nickname.

"I really hope no one calls her that when we get back to the office," he said, fervently, and Perry chuckled.

"Kent?" Perry said, just before he would have hung up. "Did you get the story?"

"Yes, sir," Clark answered, smiling at the predictability. "We got the story."

He ended his phone call and made it back into Lois's room just in time to hear her arguing with the doctor.

"I do not need to stay overnight for observation," Lois protested, obviously parroting the doctor's own words back at him.

"Ms. Lane, with your concussion-" The other man was clearly floundering. He had a slightly wide-eyed look, like he'd been run over. Clark knew the feeling.

"You can discharge me, or I'm walking out on my own, but I'm still leaving," Lois informed the flustered man.

"You should probably just discharge her," Clark told the man, sympathetically. "It's much easier that way, trust me."

He must have been convincing, because fifteen minutes later, he and Lois were driving back to the resort, Clark carrying Lois's coat and her prescription painkillers. They entered their cabin and Lois flopped down on her bed with a groan.

"You want first shower?" Clark asked, looking down at her in concern.

Lois shook her head, waving him toward the bathroom. Clark meant to take a quick shower, but as soon as he was under the hot water, he just couldn't bring himself to hurry. When he finally did get out, the cold air was a shock, and he got dressed very fast. On his way out, Lois squeezed past him into the steam-filled bathroom, and Clark climbed onto his bed and fell into a light doze.

He woke up when Lois came out of the bathroom, her hair still damp from her shower. The black garbage bag covering her new cast crinkled loudly with each step, and she sat down heavily on the other bed and pulled it off her leg with an irritated huff.

"I forgot how much broken bones suck," she growled. "Of course, you wouldn't know anything about that."

"Do you need me to get you anything?" Clark asked, wisely choosing not to respond to her grumbling.

"I just want to get some real sleep," Lois told him.

Clark nodded in response, and watched her settle back on her bed. He clicked off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and he heard Lois tossing and turning, restlessly, punching her pillow.

Finally, Lois groaned and Clark heard the springs creaking as she stood up. Then, his mattress dipped down as she sat down beside him. Lois elbowed him lightly in the side as she stretched out beside him, and Clark obligingly moved over, stretching an arm out so that Lois was resting her head on his shoulder. Lois sighed, relaxing back against Clark as she finally allowed sleep to overtake her. Clark followed a few moments later, the sound of Lois's deep, even breathing lulling him to sleep.


End file.
